This week’s meeting between occupational therapists and Cyprus’s Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) on bringing the profession into the General Health System (GHS) has been postponed, leaving thousands of children who need the treatment facing a longer wait.
The two sides are now due to meet in the first ten days of October. Patient groups said everyone involved needed to prioritise patients’ interests, particularly those of the thousands of children affected.
Occupational therapy is included among GHS services, but the HIO and occupational therapists have failed to reach agreement for almost seven years. As a result, patients must either pay privately, turn to occupational therapists in the public sector, or go without the treatment altogether.
Charalambos Papadopoulos, secretary of the Cyprus Federation of Patients’ Associations (OSAK), told philenews the federation had been informed of the postponement. The meeting had been due to take place this week at the Ministry of Health, which had taken on the task of helping the two sides reach an agreement.
He said this was not the first time a meeting had been postponed, and that given the scale of the delay on an issue affecting thousands of people, most of them children, OSAK felt compelled to voice its concern and protest publicly.
Papadopoulos said it was inconceivable that the two sides had spent many months trying to discuss a proposal without reaching an understanding, and suggested reluctance on one side or the other lay behind the repeated postponements. He said the continuous delay worried the federation greatly, particularly regarding the intentions of those involved, given how important these services were for patients.
He said OSAK had tried to intervene in the past, holding meetings with both the HIO and the therapists, but had failed because the disagreements between them could not be bridged at the time. He said the problem persisted and that responsibility now needed to be assigned where it was due, adding that the federation would not hesitate to do so publicly if the situation continued.
Papadopoulos said the worst part was that everyone involved had invoked patients’ best interests over the years, yet patients, children and their families were, in the end, the only ones whose interests went unserved. When a family cannot afford these services, he said, the child misses lessons in order to be treated by occupational therapists in the public sector, who cannot in practice cover the needs of everyone who needs the treatment.
Papadopoulos said it was finally time for everyone to take responsibility towards these people. He added that OSAK had tried various ways to resolve the problem and would now only comment publicly. “We will certainly not accept further delays,” he said.
